The Monkey's Fist

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Our job this morning: get the ship ready for visitors. That included sweeping and mopping (a.k.a swabbing) the decks, opening the cannon ports, and crawling over under and around various obstacles to turn on the videos music and projectors. Then at the end Dan couldn't find his headlamp (which as you see is on his forehead). Darn! Hanging out with all these twenty-something sailors simultaneously keeps us young, and makes us feel old!

Underway time! First, though, a great lunch, served up here in the galley by our ship's cook.

A misty overnight passage from New Bedford to Newburyport, MA

People on shore clapped and cheered -- and photoed -- as we went through the Cape Cod canal. The crew of the off watch, for their part, waved back, and were sightseeing and playing in the rigging.

Running ahead of schedule and we have to wait around near to sea buoy for several hours for the tide. What better way to spend the time than a safety drill? The results here were disappointing to everyone. It took us quite a while; our hypothetical man overboard probably succumbed to hypothermia. Guess we need more of these drills.

What a reception we got in Newburyport! The docks were packed! People cheered and whistled, they were crazy-excited to see us. I wonder if this is what it would have been like in the old days, when the ship arrived after months or more at sea?

When I posted on Facebook that we were in Newburyport, my cousin-by-marriage Sylvia gave me the address of her grandfather's house in town, the source of many nostalgic happy memories for her. We walked over to check it out and snap this front-door photo.

A beautiful old stone wall on a residential street.

Pedestrian plaza, including one of the largest children's playground I've seen in a "high-rent district." Nice note, what it says about a town that they'd give up the tax income from another shop, to provide an open space for the citizens. We walked around town on our break, including a stroll circling the town square (which, to complete a bad pun, was actually triangular).

Couldn't resist this street sign!

The "red hat ladies" do pirate style!

We were in the newspaper every day.

Turnout was crazy -- we had two or three thousand visitors each day. We had breakfast events, open all day 10-7 as usual, then special evening events. No one had planned on that level of success - we ran out of printed tickets. We ended up collecting them, counting them, and then running them back to the ticket booth to be reissued to the next day's visitors. Cool way to save trees. But the tix themselves were so pretty that we had many many people who wanted to keep them for souvenirs.

Finally underway again for Portland. We had fair winds for a while and deployed the main sail ... which is so big I couldn't fit it all in one photo!

Thursday, June 2, 2016

An old whaling town, then industrial mill town, now a big fishing center, but trying to be known for the bigger context of their maritime history, which is why they invited us. We were treated to free passes to the local whaling museum, a huge, spectacular collection. My favorite oddity from the town was the large Portuguese population -- lots of folks from the Azores who got into the whaling in the 19th century. And a Portuguese restaurant gifted us coupons for free Portuguese beers in our welcome packages. We took advantage of the coupons and also tasted their cod cakes. Different from the fish cakes we're used to in the South, in these the fish was so finely minced it was almost pureed, mixed with fresh herbs and mashed potatoes, and then fried. Very light, very tasty, something we're hoping to try and replicate when we're back aboard Cinderella.

Goodbye, Wilmington, and goodnight. We are underway!

Full moon in the rigging

Old meets new. The town of New Bedford is trying to expand its reputation from being known as a fishing village to highlight other aspects of its maritime history; that is why we are here.

What do a couple of people who live on a floating tall ship museum do on their "dia libre" (day off)? Why, visit a local maritime history museum, of course!

Pavement photos: Here are the ends of a crosswalk in New Bedford. Somebody in public works has a sense of humor!!

El Galeon docked in New Bedford, view from the whaling museum. My favorite visitor in this town had a conversation with me about the nature of the frontier that is such a part of the American psyche. His claim is that we had a frontier that was ultimately maritime in our roots, long before Hollywood romanticized the cowboy image of "frontier." Food for thought?